


too quiet without you

by iammyfavflower



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Light Angst, M/M, Super Fluffy At The End, They are just so in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-01 12:39:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13998534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iammyfavflower/pseuds/iammyfavflower
Summary: “Lance?”He almost hit his head a second time with how fast he whipped his head up to see that he had done the exact opposite of hit cancel.





	too quiet without you

**Author's Note:**

> I have exams in 2 days and a different fic I should be working on but hey, here I am

The silence of space would never be something that Lance could get used to. It was so different from back home, where there was constant noise. Even the quiet was loud. The sound of food being cooked, of feet running down the hall, someone chattering away on the phone in another room. But here, slipping through the oblivion of space, it got deathly silent. The castle ship would hum under his fingertips as he trailed a hand down lonely corridors.

Even after months of living in the castle, he still wasn’t used to how empty it was. In between training, and strategising with the Blade of Marmora, and fighting Galra forces, Lance often found himself alone. Pidge was usually holed up in their room; tapping away at keys, or showing off some new gadget to Matt. Hunk experimented in the kitchen, and as much as Lance loved Hunk and his food, the experiments don’t always turn out that well.

He knew from experience.

Shiro mainly went to train or strategise with Allura, Coran, and Lotor. Plus, he had been off these past few weeks, especially since Lotor (who Lance still didn’t fully trust with his somehow perfect hair, and skin, and weird British accent that he somehow had even though he was from space) joined team Voltron. Allura trained with him sometimes, but she was mostly busy as well.

Coran, he sure was something. Lance genuinely enjoyed his company most of the time, hearing strange stories about vast alien planets and species while scrubbing down the healing pods. It filled in the silence before it ate away at Lance any more. But one could only stand the sharp smell of cleaning supplies for so long.

Lotor; Lance wasn’t even going to start with that.

And then there was Keith. Keith with his stupid mullet and fingerless gloves that had annoyed Lance to no end when he was here. When he was here being the key point. Now he was god knows where infiltrating and sneaking and fighting in an entirely different star system than Lance. Without his sharpshooter to watch his back.

So that left Lance alone. Absentmindedly trailing his fingers along the soft lights that lined the castle’s halls. Silence gnawing at his side. His bayard sat in his pocket, but you couldn’t use a gun to fight off a bone-aching quiet. You couldn’t even use a sword, because hey, he had one of those now, that was pretty cool.

The only weapon you could use to fight off silence was your tongue, and Lance had gotten pretty good at using that weapon over his life. Fighting over siblings for a chance to speak was as natural as breathing to Lance. He sliced up the awkward silences in conversations without a second thought.

But it was harder to fight alone. With any weapon, in any battle.

Without realising it, Lance had made his way to the control room. He had nothing better to do, so he sunk down into his chair, sliding until he was dancing across the edge of comfort. He rested his face in his palm, staring out into an inky blackness that was dotted with a million pinpricks of possibility.

Lance had fallen in love only a couple of times. Once with a girl from his high school that gave him flowers and called him pretty. Another time with a boy that he would sneak out of the garrison with and share kisses coated in smoke with only the moon to ever take notice of them. And maybe another time. Maybe with someone that he didn’t want to miss but couldn’t help doing so anyway. Maybe with someone that had so many missing pieces that Lance wasn’t sure they were whole anymore. Maybe with someone Lance wouldn’t mind taking the time to build back up again.

Lance’s first love though, the love he had had before he really knew what love was, was the stars. When his papa had taken him outside in the dead of night, telling him to be quiet like it was some glorious secret. He had pointed out the constellations and Lance had only been able to look up in stunned silence. When you were a kid, you never bothered to look up. Everything was forwards, was down, was ahead. It was never up. But from that moment, Lance always wanted to be looking up.

It was so much more beautiful out here, surrounded by the stars. Floating in an ocean of light. It was stunning, but also deadly. Lance knew that now.

As memories consumed him from the inside out, he tapped his foot against the floor. If there was one thing that he physically couldn’t do, it was sit still. But he must have touched his foot against a switch or something on the floor because a call was going through and shit that was not good he wasn’t supposed to start calls.

In his surprise, he dropped his face from his hand and smashed into the armrest with his forehead. The call had stopped so he must have hit the cancel button or something. At least his big head was good for something.

Lance groaned, reaching up to rub his aching head. That hurt way more than it should have.

“Lance?”

He almost hit his head a second time with how fast he whipped his head up to see that he had done the exact opposite of hit cancel.

Keith blinked down at him, confusion written all over his face. There were bags under his eyes, and his lips were pressed together in an almost pout.

Lance stared back at him, just like the days they would have pointless staring competitions and would end up disturbing training. Except this time there was no menace, and Lance couldn’t tear his eyes away for an entirely different reason. It had been so long since he had seen Keith’s face properly like this, and no it wasn’t the real thing, but it was so much better than nothing.

“Uh,” Lance said eloquently. “Hey?” If it were any other time Lance would have tacked on a ‘you come here often?’ but his brain was just too filled with Keith to do its usual flirty thing.

Keith looked around nervously, eyes scanning over Lance’s head as if he expected someone else to be here. “I have a message for Allura,” he still sounded kind of confused. 

‘I have a message for Allura’ went banged around inside of Lance’s head a bit before he could make sense of it. Oh. Of course. Keith had a super-secret message from the Blade to deliver. That made sense. He obviously didn’t want to talk to Lance, even for a minute or so. Keith obviously didn’t miss him like he missed Keith. Because fuck, he hadn’t been able to admit to himself before now, but he missed Keith. He really did. 

But Keith didn’t miss Lance enough to want to talk to him. That was, it was okay. He had a scar that ran from his hip to almost all the way down to his knee. He could deal with this. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

He stood up harshly, trying not to make it look as mechanical as it was. Keith’s eyes snapped back to him. “I’ll go get Allura then,” he started walking jerkily back towards the door but stopped when he heard a loud voice from behind him.

“No!” Keith looked kind of frantic when Lance met his eyes. Dark eyes boring into his. Keith cleared his throat awkwardly. “I mean, it’s not that important. It could wait.”

Lance slunk back into his chair, slowly coming to rest his face in his hand again. A smirk played across his lips.

“Aww,” he cooed. “You miss me, baby boy?”

Red painted Keith’s face, standing out beautifully against his porcelain skin. His hair was tied in a ponytail, and Lance thought that he would have a framed picture of that if he could. Lance could see the retorts bubbling up inside Keith as the blush died down. But then he looked pointedly away from Lance, and he went even redder.

“Yes,” he murmured, and Lance thought he must have heard wrong.

For once his mouth stopped working, and all he could do was stare at the crappy image of this beautiful boy in front of him. Keith tilted his head back towards Lance and stared him directly in the eyes. He looked how he did when he was fighting; like even a million suns couldn’t burn as bright as he could. Lance thought he might catch aflame just from being on the receiving end of that look.

“I miss you,” Keith said, no longer soft and quiet like it was a secret, but determined and sure, like he wanted the whole world to know. But he was only talking to Lance, and Lance felt something break inside him. The broken shell of a maybe fell away to reveal a definitely that a million suns couldn’t melt.

Lance no longer felt like he was going to burst into flames from just looking at Keith anymore. He felt warm all over; in every part of his being. Body and soul. Keith was looking at him with something that Lance couldn’t quite place.

Lance smiled, big and dopey like he had just saved the entire universe. “I miss you too,” he said, and he knew that the entire universe had heard only from the soft little smile Keith gave.

 

~

 

(“Oh yeah, I forget to tell you last time. I have a sword now!”

“No way. You don’t have a sword.”

“Yeah, I do. You’re just jealous cause it's bigger than yours is. See!”

“Lance I swear to god.”

“Hey, I didn’t do anything baby boy.”)

**Author's Note:**

> btw they totally called each other heaps after this. the others pretended not to notice


End file.
